Art walk

In addition to jewelry and watches, THE SHOW is also staging a spectacular Art Walk this year. Paintings by the artists Juliane Hundertmark and Tibor Pogonyi will be on display. THE SHOW’s partner here is the gallery Heissings Art.

Gallery owner Heinrich Heissing is a catalyst and a condenser, a man on the move, a seeker and a finder. His passion is to discover distinctive artistic handwriting that touches its viewers. He starts on the spot, searches for what’s feasible and then adroitly advances ever further into the nebulous world of international art. The results of this process are the artworks shown at his gallery, a selection of which will be on display in Lübeck, in Berlin and at THE SHOW.

Reflexion VII (2020) by Tibor Pogonyi

TIBOR POGONYI

Born in Eger, Hungary in 1974, Tibor Pogonyi is obsessed with the depiction of textile surfaces. Virtuosic allusions to classical masters such as Velázquez and Titian enliven the color schemes and compositions of Pogonyi’s paintings. At the same time, the artistic autonomy with which he pursues his subject – the human condition – gives his paintings a captivating and nearly irresistible topicality. The veiling of the figures, along with subtle motifs borrowed from the present day, lend an absurd and surreal character to Pogonyi’s depictions. A quiet, almost contemplative, yet nonetheless suspenseful atmosphere dominates many of the scenes. The art historian Tinatin Ghughunishvili comments on Pogonyi’s work: “When, on a two-dimensional surface, fictional reality surpasses the tangible and factual world in expression and intensity, and when the effect of the paintings is so strong that viewers would like to lose themselves and find themselves again in the images, then one no longer asks questions about the function of art. One becomes addicted to it. The portrayed people reveal their innermost selves to the artist. This is not just a mastery of old masters’ techniques of portraiture, nor is it merely a marriage of nearly classical realism and the contemporary language of art, but above all an unmistakable celebration of painting in its purest form.”

JULIANE HUNDERTMARK

Born in Mainz in1971, Juliane Hundertmark stages conventional situations in private rooms, gardens and public meeting places. We immediately recognize these venues. She adds a title in small and large letters to almost every picture. We think we quickly comprehend these too, but we soon become doubtful when we find “Mutation” written above a scene in a living room or “Delicatessen” above a dining table. It’s delightful to see the complex shapes into which viewers contort themselves when they are confronted by these artworks. The subjects are clearly portrayed; the only reason why most beholders can’t cope with the interpretation of beings that are soon recognizable as Homo sapiens is that these viewers want to understand themselves throughout their lives “aesthetically” and not as grotesque figurines.

A disturbing chromatic intelligence distinguishes Hundertmark’s maturely composed artworks. The almost awkward treatment of the surfaces, the seemingly provisional character and the clumsiness of the protagonists: everything seems to contradict scrumptious indulgence in pictorial pleasure. The titles do the rest: Sigmund Freud would have enjoyed these pictures. We spend every day busily sorting out our lives, obeying contemporary constraints, suppressing the truth and typically opting for “political correctness” rather than calling a spade a spade. Juliane Hundertmark turns each of our lives into a crime scene. Without giving room to repression, she lets the reality of our own being flow towards us without much artificial staging.

„Delicatessen“ (2020) by Juliane Hundertmark